[alfiedotwtf]

MRIs show study after study that ADHD is real. Its been shown that ADHD is either the inability or significant reduction of processing dopamine, or the inability or significant increase in dopamine production. That’s all there is to it.

Tell a blind person to simple try harder in seeing, and that you don’t believe being blind is “a thing”.

[TimTheTinker]

At its core, ADHD's main mechanistic difference is undeniably an executive function deficit -- the frontal lobe not being activated enough to properly regulate functions of the rest of the brain or exert executive planning and follow-through.

The "paradoxical" effects of ADHD stimulant-type medications is the most direct indicator that this is indeed the case: taking a CNS stimulant normally causes more arousal, agitation, and activity in NT individuals.

But in ADHD individuals, CNS stimulants up-regulate frontal lobe activity, which manifests as a relaxant, since the frontal lobe is doing a better job of regulating and stabilizing the rest of the brain. Executive function also improves considerably.

So the most objectively measurable symptom of ADHD is whether this paradoxical behavioral alteration occurs from taking a CNS stimulant.

You can argue all you like about whether ADHD is within this or that percentile threshold -- but you can't argue with a proven, consistent, clinical result that points strongly to under-functioning of the frontal lobe in individuals with ADHD.

I've experienced this myself. My quality of life is profoundly different after taking Ritalin. I feel more relaxed; the buzzing and noise in my head is significantly reduced. I stop feeling the profound urge to get distracted like Doug the dog from the movie Up: ... "squirrel!"

[TomK32]

> The "paradoxical" effects of ADHD stimulant-type medications is the most direct indicator that this is indeed the case: taking a CNS stimulant normally causes more arousal, agitation, and activity in NT individuals. > But in ADHD individuals, CNS stimulants up-regulate frontal lobe activity, which manifests as a relaxant, since the frontal lobe is doing a better job of regulating and stabilizing the rest of the brain. Executive function also improves considerably.

Hence the MASSIVE problem of undiagnosed ADHD that can lead into drug abuse just like with my brother who got hooked on speed and heroin, even built a small business on that, not that that was any good in front of the judge...

Estimates on the drug addicted prison population having ADHD are way above the general population, just think they could have been kept from getting into drugs, committing crimes etc if only they had been diagnosed and treated early enough! Same for people who suffer from depression.

[alfiedotwtf]

Amen

[quacked]

I don't understand why people consistently seem to think that I am telling people that their experience "isn't real" or that their brains and behavior aren't different from the majority, or that everyone can get around it by "trying harder". None of that is what I'm saying. I could be diagnosed with a real, clinical case of ADHD pretty immediately if I so desired. Going by the dictionary definition, I "have it" and have "had it" for my entire life. My father "has it" to the same degree that I do and is medicated for it. My life has been a great deal harder than it would have been had I taken stimulants.

My point is that, unlike people who have a fracture in their femur vs. people who don't, the "significant reduction" of dopamine processing metric, when codified, is a pretty consistent, smooth line across the population. There are a group of people who are seriously dopamine-processing-reduced, and then a huge grey area with people who kind of are and then kind of aren't, and then there's group of people whose dopamine-processing ability defines the "baseline" against which ADHD is constructed. ADHD is a four letter label that was only invented to help doctors help people deal with difficulties they have with executive functioning, given that modern society demands a baseline of executive function out of citizens if you want to receive food, shelter, salary, and promotions.

In recent years, the "ADHD boundary" has been expanding to capture more people in the grey area as doctors, psychiatrists, and insurers play looser with the definition of ADHD than they did when it was first invented. But at its core, the condition is literally "compared to this other group of people, you have a harder time at certain important tasks than they do". Is that a "real condition" in the same way that COVID-19 is a real condition? I say not; it's a methodological shorthand.

I am very aware that the brains of certain people work differently than others, and that in "ADHD brains" (a group which includes mine) it is possible to use a brain scan to observe differences relative to that "normal group of people". But if you took scans of the "least ADHD" group, you could find that their brains differ as well, and they have certain cognitive advantages compared to the new baseline of middle-ground brains. We could call that "Attention Surplus Normal-activity Advantage". But it would be stupid to label them with ASNA. Everyone would be aware that the four-letter acronym is just an arbitrary shorthand to describe a group of people that can be diagnostically clustered together relative to everyone else. The "advantage" would be exactly as real as the "disorder".

[alfiedotwtf]

What you’re describing is a spectrum… and I don’t see any problem here. Even blindness is not binary - it too is a spectrum.

People can be 100% blind where they don’t detect bright lights strobing in front of them, all the way to someone who has a mild 0.01 stigmatism.

But from the sounds of it, you don’t like anything that isn’t binary? Sorry, maybe I’m misunderstanding you

[dragonwriter]

> study after study that ADHD is real. Its been shown that ADHD is either the inability or significant reduction of processing dopamine, or the inability or significant increase in dopamine production. That’s all there is to it.

Its not, though, because while the dopamine/norepinephrine chain seems to be the main issue in ADHD, serotonin also seems to be implicated, as low serotonin levels are associated with it and serotonin-targeting interventions also seem to help.

But, yeah, your more general point is correct; ADHD is undeniably a real condition.